432 FUNAFUTI ATOLL. 
colour and details of the aperture, that Sowerby’s determination 
can only be considered as one of the blunders which so plentifully 
occur in his works. 
CERITHIUM BREVE, var. ELLICENSIS, var. nov. 
(Fig. 20). 
Shell conical, blunt in front and tapering somewhat rapidly 
behind. Colour cream. Apex of the only example broken, 
remaining whorls seven, of which the upper are much eroded. 
Sculptured by low rounded longitudinal ribs which crenulate the 
suture and project at the periphery, on the antipenultimate there 
are thirteen of these, on the penultimate fifteen, and on the last 
whorl where they tend to disappear, there are counting varices, 
eleven. The last whorl is girdled by six, the earlier by two zones 
of raised and polished callus, which swell into greater prominence 
on the crest of each rib. The space between these zones is scored 
by sharp, narrow, revolving grooves, widest apart in the centre. 
Behind the aperture is a broad outstanding varix 
which ascends the penultimate whorl to the lower 
callus zone. Half a whorl further back is another 
but much weaker varix. No varices can certainly 
be distinguished on the spire, though some slightly 
more prominent ribs there suggest them. Aperture 
perpendicular, oval, anterior canal short, oblique 
and deeply cut; inner lip with a heavy layer of 
callus terminating above and below in a ridge 
tubercle. Anteriorly and externally the columella 
is reflected, not appressed to the shell, Outer lip 
within much thickened, armed with seven enter- 
ing ridges of callus. Length 10, breadth 5 mm, 
One specimen from the lagoon beach, differs from 
type by smaller size and less prominent sculpture. 
Of the figures accessible to me, this form most resembles those 
of OC. hanleyi, Sowerby, and C. rubrolineatum, Sowerby,* from 
which it seems to differ by smaller size, absence of coloured bands, 
and apparently different arrangement of the teeth of the aperture. 
Tryon unites these two, and comments severely on this author’s 
nomenclature. Sowerby himself, by a negligence truly remarkable, 
omits both from his later Monograph in the Conchologia Iconica. 
The original figure of C. brevet seems to be badly drawn. As 
Kiener had access to the original specimens of Quoy and Gaimard, 
I would rather base an identification on his different but well 
drawn figure.t Smith has suggested§ that ‘‘C. breve may be 
* Sowerby—Thesaurus Conch. ii., 1855, pl. clxxxiii., figs. 193 and 199. 
+ Voy. “Astrolable,” Zool., 1835, pl. liv., fig. 9. 
t Kiener—Loc. cit., pl. xiv., fig. 2. 
§ Smith—Mollusca, Zool. Coll. “‘Alert,” 1884, p. 65. 
